the second element of restoring growth and opportunity is fundamental tax reform. we have all seen the scandals of the irs targeting conservative groups, tea party groups, pro- life groups, targeting groups that use offensive words like of rights." recognize's right in those are a threat to what they were doing. as problematic as what they were doing was -- and let me be clear. richard nixon tried to use the irs to target political enemies it was wrong and it was rightly decried in a bipartisan manner. when the obama administration did the same thing, it is every bit as wrong. itbad as that scandal is,

underscores what i think is a far more fundamental solution. we need to abolish the irs. [applause] let me tell you something. in washington, d.c., there is a technical term for what i just said. that's called crazy talk. outknow, it's the people there on the fringe. why? there is an army of lobbyists on k street to make a living putting exemptions into the irs code. there are more words in the irs code than there are in the bible. not a one of them is as good. anyone know the shortest scripture in the bible? there has been a lot of weeping

because of the irs. listen. if you have to depend on elected officials in washington, the irs will not be abolished. there is only one way that we will actually succeed in abolishing the irs and that is the same way we won the drone fight in the gunfight. there is no politician in washington who can win this fight. i cannot win it. chuck cannot win it. the only people who can win it are the men and women across america. if millions upon millions of americans come together as grassroots and demand of our elected officials to stand for principles. stop going down this road that is bankrupting the country and threatening the future of our kids and grandkids. that's the anything that can do it -- the american people

demanding it. i'm working very, very hard to encourage and mobilize the american people to do exactly that. the third way we restore economic growth is regulatory reform, reducing the army a regulators, like locusts. actually, locusts are more friendly. [laughter] you can use pesticide against them. it does not work nearly as well against regulators. but to stop the army of regulators who are destroying economic growth and there is no regulatory reform more important and repealing every single word of obamacare. [applause] now, i am here right now to enlist your help. we are getting ready to have an

epic battle on obamacare. you may have read congress has voted 38, 39, 506 times two repeal obamacare but none of those votes were binding. none of them are passed into law. it's one thing to vote when it's a symbolic gesture and you can save that you voted to do it. it's another thing when you can actually get it done. this fall, we have an opportunity to defund obamacare. [applause] in september, the continuing resolution that funds the federal government expires. i have publicly pledged along with a number of other senators but under no circumstances will i vote for a continuing resolution that funds one penny of obamacare.

[applause] our framers knew what they were doing when they crafted the legislation. thomas jefferson said it is chains to bind the mischief of government and one of the most important constraints they had was congress had the power of the purse and it is a very effective restraint to restrain an out-of-control executive. if we do one of two things, if we hold 41 republicans in the united states senate or 218 republicans in the house of representatives, we can defund obamacare in september. i will point out that this is the last fight we will have on this before it starts going into full force in january.

just a couple of weeks ago, as you know, president obama unilaterally and, in defiance of the law, decided to postpone the employer mandate until conveniently after the 2014 election. i will make two points about that. the fact that they moved it until after the election, and i suggest the timing is done accidental, is an incredible omission. if obamacare were a good thing, they would do it before the election. if it was working, as harry reid said on sunday, "obamacare has been wonderful for the american people," if that were true, why move it after the election? it is an admission from the president that just as the lead

author of obamacare, max baucus, said, it's becoming a train wreck. the wheels are coming off. secondly, with the obama administration did was postpone it for small companies with 50 employees or more. why is it that a corporations get benefits that hard-working families and taxpayers not given? that's why we need to defund every bit of it for every american. is this going to be easy? the two things i just put out there -- abolishing the irs and the funding obamacare -- i don't know if any of you and the business consultant world have heard of the phrase bhag? hairynds for big,

audacious goals. these are big, hairy audacious goals for the american people. if either of those came to a vote right now in congress, we would lose. we don't have the votes in the senate or the house. i will tell you as well there's nothing i can do to change it. i can argue until i'm blue in the face and it's not within my capacity to persuade 41 senate republicans or 218 house republicans but you can. the way we get this done is the american people stand together, we come together as grassroots activists and we demand of our elected officials -- enough is enough. stop talking. start acting. i'm reminded of back in 2001 i

worked in the department of justice and my boss, john ashcroft, said the following. if i'm ever accused of accused of being a christian, i would like there to be enough evidence to convict me. i think the same thing is true. demonstrate that we are with you by standing up and acting and the only way that will happen is if the grassroots demand it of our elected officials. i want to close by sharing with you -- this is a room of men and women who love this country, love liberty. notall of us, liberty is some abstract concept we learn and read about in a high school textbook. it is something that is real in our own lives, something that means something to beach and everyone of us and and it has something to do with all of our collect stores.

that is very much true. my dad is from cuba. born in cuba, grew up in cuba. he started fighting in the cuban revolution. he spent four years fighting in the revolution and he was thrown in prison and tortured, beaten almost to death. to this day, his front teeth are not his own because they were kicked out of his mouth in a jail. in 1957, my dad fled the regime and came to texas. he had $100 sewn in his underwear -- which i don't advise. he got a job washing dishes. he did not have to speaking english. he made $.50 an hour in paid his way through the university of texas, got a job, started a

small business, worked towards the american dream. inay, my dad is a pastor dallas. he's been my hero my whole life. please stand up. [applause] when i was a kid, my dad would say to me over around over again, when we face oppression in cuba, i had a place to sleep. when we lose our sleep, where do we go? wheree lose our freedom, do we go? we have nowhere to go.

that's why we are here. you know what i find most incredible? how commonplace it is. thisve a story just like whether it is us, our parents, or our great, great grandparents. we are all the children of those who risk for freedom and i think that is the most fundamental dna of what it means to be an american, value freedom and opportunity above all else. that is what we are fighting for. that's why we are here. i will tell you i'm incredibly honored and blessed to have the opportunity to be side-by-side fighting together to take our country back to restore that shining city on a hill that is the united states of america. thank you and god bless. [applause] >> and now i am happy to answer

or dodge any questions you like. [laughter] and appreciate your goals you being here. one topic that's important to me that you failed to mention is in light of edward snowden's revelations it has become abundantly clear that america is running a police state that is more sophisticated than heinrich himmler could have ever dreamed of. what are you going to do to protect my fourth amendment and hold the nsa accountable for all of this?

>> i appreciate the question and i am concerned about a pattern across this government of collecting more and more information about private citizens, about law-abiding citizens. in terms of addressing it, we need to be cautious about the level of rhetoric we employ in the public sphere. there are enormous differences between what the federal government is doing and what nazi germany did and other dictators. >> it is critical we preserve our constitutional liberties. with edward snowden, i have tried very much to say let's take time to ascertain what exactly the government is doing, what the policies are, and there are twin objectives that i believe most americans want. the federal government has a responsibility to protect our

national security and, in particular, to combat radical islamic terrorists. i would note that it says something that we have a president of the united states who seems unwilling to utter the words, radical islamic terrorists. i have concerns about the approach of this administration on two fronts. one, it seems that they sweep law-abiding citizens into their sweep of information. they have been, on multiple occasions, less than effective in actually connect in the dots and after radical islamic terrorists. if you look for example at the boston bombings. we were notified by russia about these brothers, about there being potentially radical islamic terrorists and we went

and investigated and by all appearances drop the ball. the older brother posted a youtube video that seemed to advocate jihad. that apparently raised no red flag. i have a real concern why it was our federal government was not able to connect the dots and prevent that horrific act of terrorism. in texas at fort hood, major hassan who murdered other soldiers, again there were red flags. you had a major in the army was communicating with a known terrorist asking about the permissibility of murdering fellow servicemen, who was giving a presentation to fellow soldiers about radical islam embracing jihad. again, it seems we dropped the ball.

beview is that we need to vigorous protecting the national security of the united states and that means finding and stopping radical islamic terrorism and the same time protecting the constitution of law-abiding citizens and i believe both of those are possible and indeed to serve the ultimate objective. >> [inaudible] [indiscernible] >> i share your concerns. the question was about immigration. let me just address immigration more broadly. on immigration, i am both optimistic and pessimistic --

which may be a sign i have been in washington too long. i'm optimistic because i think there is a lot of bipartisan agreement on many aspects of immigration. i think outside of washington there is overwhelming bipartisan agreement that the system is broken. we've got to get serious about securing the borders and stopping illegal immigration. it does make sense in a post- 9/11 world that we don't know who's coming in this country. there is overwhelming bipartisan agreement that we need to improve and streamline legal immigration. we need to remain a nation that does not just welcome, that celebrates illegal immigrants. american by choice, what president reagan referred to. if congress focused on an immigration bill focusing on those areas of a bipartisan agreement we would have a bill that would sail through congress. why am i pessimistic? i don't believe president obama wants to pass an immigration

bill. i think his principal object did is political rather than passing it. in particular, the most politically divisive element of this bill is a path to citizenship for the 11 million people here illegally. if you look back in 1986, the last time congress passed immigration reform, the congress told the american a deal for you. we're going to grant amnesty to the the 3 million people currently here illegally and in exchange we are going to secure the border, stopping illegal immigration, fix the problem and the american people by and large said they would take the deal. we all know what happened. the amnesty happened and the border never got secure. and now, three decades of letter instead of 3 million people here, there are roughly 11 million.

among many of them are human tragedies. this is a terrible, broken system. i encourage anyone interested in immigration to come down to the texas border with me and visit with the farmers and ranchers on the border who no longer lock their homes because they have people breaking in desperate for food and water because they are on the brink of death. this current system, you have a women and children in trusting themselves to coyotes, dealers, being sexually assaulted, being left to die in the desert. visit with one of these ranchers who regularly encounter the bodies of those who die

desperately seeking freedom and trying to come to this country. nobody who is interested in a humane system would want a system that encourages future illegal immigration. and the gang of eight bill, which i worked very hard to improve, and when they were not willing to improve it, to stop it, continues the same mistakes of the past offering the same deal offered in 1986, legalization now and sometime maybe in the future, we will secure the border. if that bill became law, 10, 20, 30 years from now the same discussion would go on. i think what the american people want us to fix the system. i think what president obama and the obama white house wants for the bill to be voted down in the house of representatives because they want a political issue in 2014 and 2016. to my mind, the clarifying moment of the entire immigration debate occurred during the judiciary member market. one amendment to put real teeth in border security was rejected. one amendment to eliminate the path to citizenship. that amendment b underlying provisions that provided legal work permits after the border was secure.

senator chuck schumer responded. he said if there is no citizenship, there can be no reform. opportunityook the to thank him for his candor. he has been very clear here today. he has stated he has one overarching political goal and that partisan political goal is more important than everything in this bill. he has stated that if he does not get 100% of his partisan political bill that he is willing to do nothing to secure the border, willing to do nothing to improve high-tech immigration, nothing to help our

farmers and ranchers and improve agricultural immigration. most tellingly, his willing to do nothing for the 11 million people here illegally. stay in the shadows because if i don't get every bit of my partisan political goal, i will take my marbles and go home. it was candid but it was also profoundly cynical. this is not hypothetical. then senator obama played a big role in sticking the knife in immigration reform than at the behest of the union bosses. right now, congress is not working to actually fix the system. that's what the american people want and that's what i hope the house does. i don't know if they will or not but i'm doing everything i can to encourage them to do exactly that. >> we have time for just one

more question and then we will move down to the lower levels to meet with the media. are think many of us willing to get going on grassroots. i'm really excited about it erie it i feel like our hands are tied. we send letters to representatives. we call. we feel like we are going up against a black curtain and we don't know what happens. can you give us some advice on how to get going, how to mobilize people, some suggestions of opportunities we can all participate in? >> great question. one thing i'm trying to do is to help and encourage that. in the immigration fight, we started a website, secure borders now. we urge people all over to come and sign up to say secure the borders first, fixed the problem, don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

getting involved and engaged that way makes a difference. as you may know, i'm participating to abolish the irs and urging people to call in and sign up together to mobilize the grassroots. let me give an example of what the grassroots can do. helpmy and, i'm trying to facilitate and encourage but to be honest, nobody can do it as well as you can as well as each of you organically reaching out to people you know and trust, nothing has the impact like someone like someone you know, respect, and trust saying, here's the truth. here's what we need to do. let me give you an encouraging and hope. about a month ago, i was in new york speaking at the new york republican party annual fundraiser.

we had three groups of protesters. we had one group protesting immigration, one group protesting because they favored gun control and then we had another that was protesting because i was willing to talk to the new york republicans who were not very stout in defending the second amendment. it was interesting to get protested from both ends. a group of liberal activists decided they were going to do what was called a twitter bomb. at the time i was speaking, there are going to launch a liberal activists all over the country to tweet, "you cruz, you lose." in response, a group of conservative grassroots activists were going to do a twitter bomb of their own. at 5:30 p.m. wednesday night, same time they were doing it, they were urging people to tweet "cruz to victory." by 9:00, #cruztovictory was

trending number one in the u.s. and number two worldwide. [applause] the liberal attack did not make the top 10 list. that was entirely organic. we did not prompt it. we did not organize it. we did nothing. that came from the people. some of you may have seen a senior republican sometime ago referred to me and rand paul. my response to that was not to reciprocate, not to launch an insult the other way but to simply say, if standing for liberty and constitution makes you a whackobird, count me a proud whackobird. [applause] in response to that, grassroots

activists began showing up at events with t-shirts showing "whackobird" on the front. i have a picture of daffy duck with the picture "whackobird" that an activist gave to me. when we stand together, we can do incredible things. youuld encourage each of organically with your friends to organize, get engaged, call your elected representatives. stand for principle. forng them for standing principle makes a real difference and i appreciate everything you are doing. thank you and god bless. [applause]

i went to princeton and then harvard for law school. >> [inaudible] >> did he really? fantastic. thank you. thank you. >> representative king expressed a concern about the direction the party was moving in. can you respond to that? >> i don't know him. he is entitled to his own opinion.

i'm going to keep my focus not on the politics but on the substance. i think our country is facing enormous challenges right now. we are facing fiscal and economic challenges that i think are jeopardizing the future of our nation, the future of our kids and grandkids. in my view, we need to do two things. we have to preserve our constitutional liberties. the obama administration has followed a pattern of undermining our constitutional liberty. two, we have to restore economic growth and opportunity. for the last four years, we have grown 0.9% year average. fournly time of consecutive years less than one percent was 1979-1982 coming out of the jimmy carter administration and the same failed policies of out-of- control spending and regulations produce the same economic stagnation. the biggest problem with the economic stagnation of the obama

agenda is that the people who are hurt the most are the most vulnerable among us. those who have been hurt the most are the young people, hispanics, african-americans, single moms. we need economic growth back so that people who are struggling to climb the ladder can have a fair and full opportunity to achieve the american dream. >> the president just spoke on the george zimmerman verdict and trayvon martin. the president said there is a perception in the african- american community that if trayvon martin had been white the whole thing would have been different. both what happened in the aftermath. can you understand that perception? >> i did not see his remarks and i will say, any time you have a teenager who loses his life but it's a tragic day. two, i think the entire proceeding had some unfortunate elements to it. there were some in the political sphere who try to take a tragic encounter between

george zimmerman, and hispanic man defending his neighborhood, and trayvon martin and turn it into a racially polarized battle. in this case, we had a trial, a trial that was decided by a jury pursuant to the constitution and they rendered a verdict. we need to respect the verdict. to the president's credit, following the verdict, he said the same thing. we need to respect the jury's verdict and i appreciate the president saying that. more broadly, there is no doubt that in the african-american community that there are great challenges because many children in the african- american community are facing less opportunity than they would like and then they would deserve. they are often in failing educational systems, systems where their chances of getting a job, of climbing the american latter are minimized and we

should have far more passion for improving the hope and opportunity of young african- americans, young hispanics of young people through the country. for example, we ought to see far more competition and school choice so that young kids who are trapped in schools that are not teaching them, that are failing them, have the opportunity to go to a school and learn because education is foundational to achieving the american dream. i would love to see a renewed sense of passion for how we can expand opportunity and the african-american community, the hispanic community, and the two best ways to do so are to improve the educational choice and economic growth, an environment where small businesses thrive and prosper because it means that there are jobs for people climbing the ladder.

>> the president called for a national review of stand our ground laws saying it was part of the problem. >> it's not surprising the president uses every opportunity he can to try and go after our second amendment rights rights. i think it's unfortunate that this president and this administration has a consistent disregard for the bill of rights whether it's the first amendment and restrict and the rights of our servicemen and women to share their faith and not be gagged, whether it's the second amendment right to keep and bear arms, whether it is the fourth and fifth amendment rights of american citizens to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure and be protect data from arbitrary thisting by drones, administration has undermined the bill of rights bill of rights and i think that's unfortunate. >> have you put any thought into a presidential bid? >> i'm here because i'm focusing my time on trying to make the argument and win the argument that, number one, the free-market system in the system

has been the greatest engine for prosperity and opportunity world has ever seen and, two, that our constitutional safeguards, the bill of rights that protect our god given rights, they are foundational and we need to get back to the constitution. i have been in office all of seven months. prior to that, the last elected office i held was student council. what i can tell you is i have been to over one dozen states, have had 45 events across the state of texas doing everything i can to make and helped win the argument that we need to get back to our free-market principles, back to our constitutional foundation. >> is that a no or yes? onmy focus right now is not politics. >> you are in iowa, senator. >> everything likes to be put through a political lens.

i can tell you what i tell people in my office every day -- let's focus on substance, good policy makes good politics. but stand up every day, stand for principles, free-market principles, stand for the constitution and the politics will take care of themselves. i have been to over one dozen states and this is an opportunity to speak and engage grassroots activists who are a critical part of the national dialogue. let me say second thing on the question of 2016. we just had a presidential race a few months ago. i will tell you as a voter, i think it's premature to decide who we should support and i will tell you for me as a citizen and a voter who i will support in 2016 is whoever is standing up and leading, whoever is effectively defending the constitution and free-market principles, effectively making the argument to the american people that there is another road we can go down, another

path to return to prosperity and opportunity this country was built on. that is what we should be looking at and right now, the senate is the battlefield. i try to stand for conservative principles in the senate and i think the focus on substance of the politics will take care of themselves. thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] on a typical teach tour, we start with, the music industry started with edison and the cylinder machine. then we go forward with the flat diskof the machine, which is called the gramaphone. then we tell about johnson's

very important intentions to improve this machine. >> mr. johnson and his engineers went to work to try to keep customers happy. it came up with a style referred to as a victrola. the word was coined with the horn was removed and it was put in a concealed area within the cabinet itself. put they also decided to contours on the front, which allows you to modify -- doors on the front, which allows you to modify the sound. ,ou can also close the lid which gives you the ability to soften the sound. if you had a scratchy record, that would also high that sound as well. ♪

♪ about johnson, the founder of the victor talking machine company in 1901. a look at the history and literary life of dover, delaware. sunday at 5:00 p.m. on c-span 3 's american history tv. i decided that he was a delicious subject for a by the fate when it dawned on me that he had been at abraham lincoln's bedside immediately after his assassination, but also at the bedside of william mckinley in 1901. i thought, who could this fellow be? when i opened the archives, i

realize what a rich subject it was. his life has two bookends at either end of his biographical shelf. lincoln's perfect -- personal secretary, private secretary. he lived in the white house with abraham lincoln. much of what we know about hayes comes from him. he served on the mckinley. after mccann the's assassination, he was secretary of state -- mckinley's assassination, he was secretary of state under teddy roosevelt. from the civil war through the beginning of the 20th century, he is a presence in every one of those chapters. his fingerprints are on all of the pages. in many cases, he has written those chapters of american history.

8 p.m. on c-span's "q & a." >> on friday, the president made his first comments on the trayvon martin murder trial. he made his comments in the white house briefing room. >> that is so disappointing. jay, is this the kind of respect you get? on television, it usually looks like you are addressing a full rome. -- full room. all right. sorry about that. do you think anybody else is showing up? good.

>> i wanted to come out here, first of all, to tell you that jay is prepared for all your questions and is very much looking forward to the session. the second thing is i want to let you know that over the next couple of weeks, there's going to obviously be a whole range of issues -- immigration, economics, et cetera -- we'll try to arrange a fuller press conference to address your questions. the reason i actually wanted to come out today is not to take questions, but to speak to an issue that obviously has gotten a lot of attention over the course of the last week -- the issue of the trayvon martin ruling. i gave a preliminary statement right after the ruling on sunday. but watching the debate over the course of the last week, i thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit. first of all, i want to make sure that, once again, i send my thoughts and prayers, as well as michelle's, to the family of trayvon martin, and to remark

on the incredible grace and dignity with which they've dealt with the entire situation. i can only imagine what they're going through, and it's remarkable how they've handled it. the second thing i want to say is to reiterate what i said on sunday, which is there's going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case -- i'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues. in judge conducted the trial a professional manner. defenseecution and the made their arguments. the juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. and once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works.

but i did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. you know, when trayvon martin was first shot i said that this could have been my son. another way of saying that is trayvon martin could have been me 35 years ago. and when you think about why, in the african american community at least, there's a around what happened here, i think it's important to recognize that the african american community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away.

there are very few african american men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. that includes me. there are very few african american men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. that happens to me -- at least before i was a senator. there are very few african americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. that happens often. and i don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the

african american community interprets what happened one night in florida. peoples inescapable for to bring those experiences to bear. the african american community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. and that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case. now, this isn't to say that the african american community is naïve about the fact that african american young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they're disproportionately

both victims and perpetrators violence. it's not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. they understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history. and so the fact that sometimes that's unacknowledged adds to the frustration. and the fact that a lot of african american boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out

there that show that african american boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain. i think the african american community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like trayvon martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. so folks understand the challenges that exist for african american boys. it they get frustrated, think, if they feel that there's no context for it and that context is being denied. and that all contributes i think a sense that if a white male

teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different. now, the question for me at least, and i think for a lot of folks, is where do we take this? how do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction? i think it's understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. if i see any violence, then i will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to trayvon martin and his family. but beyond protests or vigils,

the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do. isnow that eric holder reviewing what happened down there, but i think it's important for people to have some clear expectations here. traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code. and law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels. that doesn't mean, though, that as a nation we can't do some things that i think would be productive. so let me just give a couple of specifics that i'm still bouncing around with my staff, so we're not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where i think all of us could potentially focus.

number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, i think it would be productive for the justice department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists. when i was in illinois, i passed racial profiling legislation, and it actually did just two simple things. one, it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was stopped. but the other thing was it resourced us training police departments across the state on how to think about potential racial bias and ways to further professionalize what they were

doing. and initially, the police departments across the state were resistant, but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way that it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and, in turn, be more helpful in applying the law. and obviously, law enforcement has got a very tough job. so that's one area where i think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local governments are receptive. and i think a lot of them would be. and let's figure out are there ways for us to push out that kind of training. along the same lines, i think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the florida case, rather than

diffuse potential altercations. i know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in florida were not used as a defense in the case. on the other hand, if we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see? and for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, i'd just ask people to consider, if trayvon martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground

on that sidewalk? and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting mr. zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? and if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws. number three -- and this is a long-term project -- we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our african american boys. and this is something that michelle and i talk a lot about. there are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement.

and is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them? i'm not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program. i'm not sure that that's what we're talking about here. but i do recognize that as president, i've got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. and for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young african american men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed -- i think that would

be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. and we're going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that. and then, finally, i think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. there has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. i haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. they end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have. familiesher hand, in and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask

yourself your own questions about, am i wringing as much bias out of myself as i can? am i judging people as much as i can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? that would, i think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy. and let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, i don't want us to lose sight that things are getting better. each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. it doesn't mean we're in a post-racial society. it doesn't mean that racism is eliminated.

but when i talk to malia and sasha, and i listen to their friends and i seem them interact, they're better than we are -- they're better than we were -- on these issues. and that's true in every community that i've visited all across the country. vigilant have to be and we have to work on these issues. and those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions. havee should also confidence that kids these i think, have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did, and that along this long, difficult

journey, we're becoming a more perfect union -- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union. thank you, guys. >> next on c-span, "washington phonel," live with your calls. and then the senate confirmation hearing for u.n. ambassador power.e samantha in about 45 minutes, a discussion of stand your ground laws. on therg news reporter securities and exchange commission case against the

goldman sachs bond trader in his role in the 2008 financial crisis. a discussion on the unit -- u.n. ambassador nominee. >> when trayvon martin was first shot i said this could have been my son. another way of saying that is trayvon martin could have been me. obama offering comments not only on the trayvon martin case but the skies and a larger issue of race and race relations during a 20 minute speech at the white house yesterday. reaction has been mixed. we w